Safe Travels Blond Bald Girl

My cousin Delia (yeah that one) came to see us. After we snuck away from my kids to talk about what she's really dealing with (graft vs. host being the bitch she can't ignore), we also made plans to work on her LSAT Personal Statement. I have no idea what that is, but I do know what it means: life goes on.

But GvH is a tyrant of a roommate. It moves in and creates unlimited problems. After three (wait?! has it been four?) years of beating back leukemia and undergoing a marrow transplant, Delia's body still plays tricks. She is now in another battle, a chronic one: her old blood versus her new life.

She thinks her face is swelling from the drugs. I look her up and down and sideways, and all I see is a face all peaches and cream with blue eyes so shiny in love (and she is!) and I remember what she once looked like. She says she feels out of it and overly anxious at times, and I remember when she was too sick to talk.

She suffers, but yet, does not suffer: she is more aware of what was than I could ever be. I tell her I hate that she has to deal with all this stuff. She tells me the alternative is worse.

If I could, I would write every bit of her application to law school for her, but I'm pretty sure that kind of unethical behavior would be frowned upon by lawyers. Instead, I'll just fill up her car with crap from my basement for the tag sale she'll have tomorrow. Out goes the easel and an old table and bunch of silk flowers I once (and I use the word loosely here) decorated with. Out goes a bolt of fabric I hung on to for far, far too long.

She crams it all into the hatch back, hugs the Short Drunk People goodbye, and takes off. This departure is an easy one: in a few weeks, she'll move to another state. With any luck, she'll start a job there in a real office with real people. It's been nearly a year of her isolation -- no restaurants, no movie theaters, no parties -- so an office? Who knew bad lighting and cubicles could be so...awesome?

She'll go with her sack of meds, with her aches and side effects, and with a referral for a local doctor. She'll go to her cute and perfect boyfriend and a life she was forced to put on hold for so, so long. She'll go with her fingers crossed, because, goddamn, she could use a little luck.

I've thought about standing atop a Mass Pike overpass, Short Drunks in tow, waving a giant sign in the air as she drives under us and away. I've considered hanging a sheet over the edge, an old sheet spray painted with our bon voyages. But I know better: that girl will be cranking her Ipod to eleven, rocking out and sipping her iced coffee, and she won't have a second to notice the four crazy people freaking out on the bridge. And you know what? I couldn't be happier.

Couldn't. be. happier.

She's on her way. At last.

See you soon, Blond Bald Girl: may daisies line your path.

(Delia: 1994, Picket's wedding)